


And They Were Roommates

by transmarkcohen



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-14 21:12:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16048643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transmarkcohen/pseuds/transmarkcohen
Summary: Mark and Benny. In college. They’re both trans because the world needs more trans characters.





	1. Mark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HeadlinesBreadlinesBlowMyMind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadlinesBreadlinesBlowMyMind/gifts).



The first day of college, Benny got lost on the way to his dorm room. He stood in the middle of the hallway, looking down at the room assignment and frowning. “Mark Cohen, B-12,” he muttered to himself. He looked at the door that stood next to him like a foreboding omen. _C-13._ Alright then...the next one was C-14. So B must be on the floor below. Benny looked around him, but the hallway seemed to stretch forever. How on earth would he get to the B floor?

Just then, he heard a gradually getting louder scream. He barely had time to jump out of the way as a shopping cart zoomed down the hallway, some kid with crazy ginger-blondish hair in the cart. The cart crashed against the wall and the guy tumbled out, his glasses falling onto the floor. He picked them up and put them back on, laughing, hardly jarred by the incident. His friend-somebody with dark hair and light eyes-high fived him.

“How was that?!” asked the dark-haired guy. “Fucking awesome, right?”

Ginger Dude nodded so vigorously that it scared Benny. “Yeah!” he said. His voice was loud. It didn’t seem like it could keep its laugh, like it could keep its pure _zest for life_ out of it. “We should do it again-down the stairs of the science building!” The two whooped and high-fived again. By this point, Benny was standing in the middle of the hallway again, peeling away from the wall. He’d realized that these two could probably help him.

“Um...excuse me?” He asked. The two turned toward him. Holy shit. Ginger Dude’s eyes were blue and-and-oh my god he was _hot._ “I, uh-it’s my first day here, and I’m kinda…lost. I don’t know...where my dorm is.”

“Let me see.” Ginger Dude grabbed Benny’s paper from him, tearing it out of his hands. His mouth broke into a (somehow) wider grin. “Dude, no way! I’m Mark Cohen!” He tried to high-five Benny, who tried to give him a handshake.

Mark stared at their predicament for an awkward five seconds before laughing loudly. “C’mon, I’ll show you. Freshman, right?”

“Yeah...wait, you’re not a freshman?”

Mark shook his head. “I got good enough grades that I skipped senior year of high school. So I’m a sophomore. Don’t worry, I’ll show you the ropes. You’ll be like...like my little pet project!” He grinned and patted Benny’s head, who moved slightly away from him.

 

Mark led Benny to the room. Mark’s room...was not the cleanest. Or rather, _Mark and Benny’s_ dorm room. But in all honesty, Benny didn’t know what to think of Mark. What to think of his assigned roommate. Why had he been assigned with a sophomore? Sure, they were the same age, but why did that change anything? What had Mark and his friend been doing? Who _was_ Mark’s friend? He’d just told Mark to catch him later and ran off for food after they hugged briefly. Then Mark had led Benny to the room.

Oh, and was Mark _high?_ Or was he normally this...bouncy?

Mark was cleaning out an area of the room. “And lunch, I mean, the lunch is good here, but you’ve really gotta try this pizza place in the city. It’s not in other cities, so, it’s like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Well, your first time going is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Of course you can go later.” Mark grinned at Benny as he threw something that looked like a scarf onto his nightstand. Mark’s nightstand was crowded with things...a chip bag, a textbook, an alarm clock, a maga- _was that a porn magazine?!_

“Uh...cool.” Benny spoke somewhat quietly. He definitely couldn’t match Mark’s temperament.

Mark tumbled down onto his bed and then faced Benny, grinning. Did the guy ever stop smiling? “So, any questions?”

“Who was that guy?” Benny asked, glad to finally have a chance to get some answers. “Your friend. In the hallway.”

Mark waved this away. “Oh, that guy,” he said. “Old fling from last year. Ex-boyfriend. We dated for about two weeks. The sex was great. Not so much the commitment and, well, _romance.”_

Benny stared at Mark, whose eyes widened. “Oh my god I forgot you’re a freshman. Uh...can I talk about sex?”

“...Yeah?”

So far, Mark was the first student Benny had actually met, and he didn’t want to compromise his chance to make a friend.

“Cool.”

“Yeah, uh-what was the deal with the shopping cart?”

Mark grinned and sat up. “We were beating our record from last year. Hailey Mills set the record before, she was a senior last year, and we had to prove to her we could beat it. It’s, like, a school tradition now. Hailey Mills was the coolest person on campus the past four years.”

“Wait, record for what?”

Mark just grinned. “You’ll find out, freshie.”

“Didn’t you say we were the same age?”

“Just because we’re the same age doesn’t mean I won’t constantly tease you for being a freshman. Me helping you balances it out.”

And that was Benny’s first interaction with the person known as Mark Cohen. It was not one Benny would forget.

 


	2. The Magazine

One week into the school year, and already Mark was starting to get on Benny’s nerves. He didn’t clean unless reminded (the chip bag had a friend of its own kind now), he went out and partied constantly (“to keep up my popularity standing! you’re a freshman so nobody’s going to notice you anyway,” he explained) and that  _ fucking  _ magazine tormented Benny whenever he looked at Mark’s nightstand. 

Oh, yeah-and he’d even started to  _ cuss.  _

He never used insults! Even of the non-swear variety! He was starting to wonder if it was too early in the school year to request a room reassignment. 

Benny groaned and turned over in bed. He was trying to get a nap while Mark was in class (surprisingly) but it wasn’t working. Maybe something smelled in the room. He didn’t know. 

Benny turned back over and saw Mark’s nightstand. The magazine was...well, it was one of the best well-kept things in the room. Benny didn’t want to think about  _ why.  _

But it was there. And he was tempted to look at it. “Don’t do it,” he whispered to himself. “It’s gonna be awful…” 

And yet, for some reason, he walked over to the nightstand and grabbed the magazine. 

Holy. 

Fucking. 

_ Shit.  _

Benny’s eyes grew wide as he flipped through it. There were full-page displays of...this was a really dirty magazine. 

And somehow Benny liked it. 

He glanced back toward his bed. “Mark won’t be back,” he said. “Just for...an hour…” 

 

Mark came back an hour and a half later, pulling a bottle of booze out of his backpack. “I got this after class,” he told Benny. “Want some?” 

“No. Also, you’re not twenty-one.” 

“Nah. But my ex-girlfriend is.” Mark opened the bottle and drank some, then put it down next to his bed and grabbed the magazine again. He started flipping through it, grinning.

“Don’t you have homework?” 

“I’ll do it later. Besides, who can concentrate on homework with something like  _ this?”  _


	3. The Guys In Film Class

Benny had shown Mark his schedule the day before, and the two had realized that they both had film class together. They had math, as well, but that was in the next semester. Now, Benny was sitting at a desk in the middle of the room, his notebook and pens neatly placed, along with a clear water bottle. Hopefully this would be enjoyable. He didn’t want to go into film, he just had an appreciation for the art. All the arts, really. Benny thought art was pretty cool.

“Yeah, see you! I’d sit next to you but I gotta help my roommate.” Mark slid into the desk next to Benny, dropping his backpack on the floor where it made a _thump._ Benny cringed at the sound. Mark unzipped his backpack and scrounged around it for something, eventually pulling out a protein bar. He started to eat it. And talk to Benny. At the same time. “So, you’ve heard of this guy, right? The professor, I mean? Of course you’ve heard of me, I’m your roommate.” Mark laughed at that as if it was the funniest joke in the world. “I had this class last year. Registered to take it again because I liked it so much. And it made me want to be a filmmaker. I didn’t really have my life together before I went to college. And I was super introverted.”

“I find that hard to believe,” muttered Benny.

Mark shrugged, as if to say _What can you do?_ “I...had a few problems with stuff. Anyway!” Mark dug through his backpack again, pulling out a doodled-on notebook with dog-eared and dirty, crumpled pages. “This is one of my notebooks from last year. I went through ten! I don’t know, sometimes it’s like I just can’t ever stop writing.”

 _Or talking,_ Benny thought to himself.

Mark opened the notebook and started writing/doodling/whatever he was doing with an inch-long pencil. Somehow, it was sharp.

But it shut Mark up. And Benny was glad about that.

He looked around at the other students. A variety, to be sure. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors all in the same class. People who knew each other from last year said hello and took their seats. People who didn’t...had made friends already, or sat alone, nervous and maybe excited. Maybe scared. Benny felt everything at once.

On top of the aura of the class, Benny was wishing he had another friend. But Mark insisted the only way to make friends was to go to parties and Benny didn’t feel like doing that. Would Mark take offense if he moved to sit somewhere else?

Just as Benny spotted a final empty seat in the corner of the room next to a lone junior, the professor walked in and told everyone to settle in and quiet down. So Benny did. The only sound was Mark chewing on that protein bar.

 _Oh my God, does he_ **_ever_ ** _stop making noise?!_

 

Class itself was alright. But Benny noticed that a lot of the guys in the class had stolen glances at Mark, sheepishly grinning at him or trying to make eye contact. Mark had been furiously writing notes, his eyes glued on the professor the whole time.

It was surprising. But Benny supposed he _was_ smart. After all, who the hell could actually skip their senior year of high school?

Not very many. But Benny was realizing that _smart_ in this case didn’t necessarily mean _wise._

As Benny headed back to his dorm room after finishing up his homework in the library, he realized he could hear people talking in the room. Mark, obviously, and... _a guy from film class?_

Benny opened the door to see the guy sitting next to Mark on Mark’s bed, his leg swung over Mark’s. He stared at them, bewildered, until Mark noticed he was there and waved him in. “Benny! This is Louis. He’s in our film class.”

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, so I was saying, the best way to do it there is to-“

“What is he doing here?” Benny interrupted.

Mark grinned. “Care to find out?” He said.

“Huh?”

“No, no, just us two,” said Louis.

“Damn it. I was kinda hoping for a threesome...but us two is just fine.”

“I...think...I’ll go back to the library,” said Benny slowly. His heart was pounding rapidly in his chest. Mark wanted to sleep with him?! Mark was sleeping with somebody from film cla-

_Oh._

Mark must’ve slept with every guy in film class.

“Yeah, okay, go back to the library,” Mark said, waving Benny away as he leaned in to kiss Louis.

Mark wanted to sleep with Benny.

And Benny had no idea _what_ he thought about that.


	4. The Pizza Place

Benny waited nervously at the table, sitting with a drink in hand, a soda, sipping it ever so carefully. Mark had promised he’d be here soon. So where was that unbelievably hot, unbelievably reckless sophomore-

“Sorry I’m late,” Mark slid into the booth across from Benny, sipping a slushee from 7/11. “You know this isn’t super serious, right? I just have a soft spot for romantic mushy shit. And also I want to fuck you.” 

Benny gripped his drink tighter, briefly glancing down at the wooden table. It had one of those circles typically found in wood. Was it called a knot? Benny forced himself to meet Mark’s eyes. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “Why didn’t you just ask me if you...wanted...to...I mean, I am your roommate?” 

And he’d been Mark’s roommate for a month now. Something had happened then that made Benny want to come out of his shell to Mark, the shell he’d been in since he was 16. So he- _ he,  _ Benny, who’d chosen that name so long ago he’d almost forgotten why-had asked Mark out on a date, Mark, the handsome, older (Benny ignored the fact that they were the same age, taking into account the fact that Mark was a sophomore) guy who wanted, for some reason,  _ to fuck him. Mark wanted to fuck him! And Benny was on a date with him!  _

Benny smiled at Mark, thinking of how handsome he was. Mark grinned back. 

And then leaned over the table and kissed Benny. 

Benny was surprised. No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was.  _ Agh!  _ What the fuck was he supposed to  _ think?  _

Well, he’d been somewhat expecting it. Okay, to be honest, he was hoping for it. 

And so, he kissed back. 

It took the two forever to pull away. But they eventually did, and Mark settled into his seat, smiling genuinely at Benny. 

Benny returned it. “Thank you,” he said. Mark simply nodded.  _ What is he thinking?  _ Benny wondered. 

 

_ Fuck, I think I’m emotionally attached.  _

 

_ I gotta date him now.  _

 

_ After I fuck him.  _


End file.
